The Missing Skull

by John Wilson

  “Well, if you give them to me, I’ll see that he gets them.”

  “Thank you,” I say, even more confused, “but I’m leaving today, and I’d like to say goodbye.”

  The woman looks me up and down and obviously isn’t impressed by what she sees. “Mr. Koval is in our long-term-stay wing. You’ll need to be escorted.”

  This is getting stranger and stranger, but I shrug and say, “Whatever.”

  The woman makes a quick phone call, and after a few minutes a security guy shows up. I’m pretty certain it’s the one who was chasing me a week ago when I snuck in, and I hope he didn’t get a good look at me. All he says is, “This way,” and heads off down a corridor.

  I follow until we reach a locked door and the security guy has to stop, enter a code into a keypad and lead me through. I think it’s odd that there are locked doors in a resort, but what do I know about these places?

  Once through the door, we’re in the corridor I recognize as the one with Koval’s suite. The security guard knocks, opens the door and ushers me in. “I’ll be out here,” he says.

  Koval is sitting in exactly the same place as before. He has reading glasses balanced on his nose and a large book open on his lap. “Hello, Mr. Koval,” I say.

  “Yuri,” he says, looking up and smiling. “I tell you, call me Yuri. How are you, Steven?”

  “I’m fine, thank you. Did your book order arrive sooner than you expected?”

  “My book order?”

  “Grandfather said you’d run out of books and your order hadn’t arrived yet,” I say, nodding at the book on his lap.

  “Ah, my book order. No, this I borrowed from a friend.”

  “Well, I’ve brought you a couple more,” I say, handing over Fer-de-Lance and Homage to Catalonia. “They’re a bit old, but I enjoyed Fer-de-Lance. It’s a mystery.”

  “Sometimes old is very good,” Yuri says, taking the books, “and I enjoy mysteries.” He holds the books lovingly, gently stroking the dust jackets. Then he looks up at me. “Please thank your grandfather very much for these. I am eternally in his debt.”

  This seems a little extreme for a gift of a couple of old books, but then, Yuri’s a bit strange. “I hope you enjoy them.”

  “Oh, I shall,” Yuri says, “and thank you for bringing them over. You see, you did come here to rescue me.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  He waves the books. “Now I can escape.”

  “Escape?”

  “Into the world of stories,” Yuri says. “I find that a good book can take one to many different places.” He stands up and shakes my hand. “Thank you again,” he says.

  My escort is waiting outside in the corridor and leads me back to the front entrance. As I leave, I turn and say, “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” he replies. “Coming in by the front door’s much easier, isn’t it?”

  By the time I’ve worked out what he said, he’s turned away and taken several steps across the lobby. So he did recognize me.

  * * *

  With only a brief stop in Huntsville to check out the bronze statue of Tom Thomson painting by his overturned canoe, we’re in Leith by lunchtime. The large granite slab marking Thomson’s grave is easy to find. We stand in front of it and read the inscription.

  TOM THOMSON

  LANDSCAPE PAINTER

  DROWNED IN CANOE LAKE

  JULY 8, 1917, AGED 39 YEARS

  11 MONTHS 3 DAYS

  “Do you think his skull’s in there?” I ask.

  “More than likely,” Grandfather says.

  As we walk back to the Jeep, Grandfather says, “I don’t think we should mention too much about this trip to your mother. I don’t think she’d be too happy with me if she knew I’d let you fall in the lake in a storm and introduced you to people who waved a gun around, even if it was loaded with blanks.”

  “I guess not,” I say.

  “We’ll keep it our secret.”

  “Like the secret of what happened in Central America with DJ?” I say.

  “Exactly,” Grandfather says with a wink. “Now let’s see if there’s a place around here that serves a decent pulled-pork sandwich.”

  NINETEEN

  When we get home, Grandfather and Mom sit down for a cup of tea. I excuse myself and go into my room to call Sam. “We’re going to the concert,” I say as soon as he picks up.

  “Where were you?” he asks.

  “Didn’t you hear what I said?” I ask, surprised by Sam’s lack of enthusiasm. “Grandfather got us tickets to the Foo Fighters and someone to take us. We’re going to the best concert of the decade!”

  “Yeah yeah,” Sam says. “I’ve been trying to call you all week.”

  “I was on a road trip, Sam. You knew that. There was no cell reception where we were.”

  “The old book your grandfather gave you,

  Fer-de-Lance—did you read it?”

  “Yeah, but what does—?”

  “Your grandfather got the book in 1934, right?” Sam interrupts and then goes on without giving me a chance to answer his question. “Did you notice if there was a logo of a flower on the inside?”

  “Yes to both questions. So what?”

  “The date and the logo mean he gave you a first edition. There’s one for sale right now on AbeBooks for $25,000. According to something called The Book Collector’s Magazine, it could be worth a lot more.”

  I stare at my phone. Sam’s saying that the book Grandfather gave me is worth a fortune. That can’t be right. He must have made a mistake. Sam does tend to go off wildly in all directions.

  Before I can say anything, Sam says, “We’re going to be rich.”

  “Calm down, Sam,” I say. “First off, we are not going to be rich. Grandfather gave the book to me, not you. Second, I don’t have the book anymore.

  “After I read the book,” I say to fill the deafening silence on the other end of the phone, “Grandfather asked me to give it and another old book he’d brought to an old guy at the resort beside where we were staying.” As I say this, a tiny dark cloud of doubt begins to gather in my mind.

  “Another old book?” Sam asks before I can take my doubts any further. “What was it?”

  “It was called Homage to Catalonia,” I say. “By a guy called George…Orwell.”

  The following silence is broken by the sound of Sam’s fingers on his keyboard. I know what he’s doing: looking up Orwell’s book on the Web. As I wait, I think about what this might mean. If Fer-de-Lance and Orwell’s book are worth thousands, does that mean there really was something going on behind Grandfather’s organized game? If Yuri Koval’s story about needing money to get back home were true, and if Grandfather knew that and also that someone else wanted to steal the money, what better way to take the money than as something valuable, and what better things to take than a couple of old books no one would look twice at? If Sophie and Jason were really trying to steal the money, they would be looking for cash or something obvious, like a piece of jewelry or a precious stone.

  “When was it published?” Sam breaks into my thoughts.

  “No idea,” I say. “How much is it worth?”

  “Somewhere between $54 and $20,000,” Sam says.

  “That’s not much help, Sam.”

  “Hey, I do the best I can. If you hadn’t given the book away, we could find out.”

  “I didn’t give the book away—Grandfather did. Never mind. I’ll go ask him.”

  “If we are rich, I’m going to buy the best Warhammer tabletop in the world. I’ve found a post-apocalypse city on eBay. It’s got twenty four ruined buildings in six street layouts. It’s only $750. It’d be a good start—I’m just saying.”

  “Sam, like I said before, you were never going to be rich.”

  “I thought we were friends,” Sam says. “What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine.”

  “But you don’t have anything.”

  “Okay, but if I did, it’d be y
ours.”

  “Goodbye, Sam. I’ll call you later.”

  Thanks to Sam, my doubts about whether I was involved in a game or a real mystery have returned. I guess there’s only one way to find out. I slide off my bed and head to the kitchen. Both Grandfather and Mom look up and smile. There’s nothing to do but launch straight in. “The book you gave me is worth a fortune,” I blurt out. “Thousands of dollars.”

  “Oh, I doubt that.” Grandfather shakes his head gently. “It’s just an old book.”

  “Sam looked it up on Wikipedia,” I push on. “It’s a first edition, and there’s one for sale on AbeBooks for $25,000. The other book,

  Homage to Catalonia, might be worth $20,000 as well.”

  “Is this true, Dad?” my mom asks. “Could Sam have made a mistake?” she adds, turning to me.

  “Sam didn’t make a mistake,” I say.

  “I’m sure he didn’t,” Grandfather says, “but the book business is not as simple as perhaps he thinks it is. In fact, it’s very complicated. To be worth the sort of money you’re talking about, a book has to be in absolutely perfect condition, never read, protected from sunlight and so forth.”

  “Those books looked in good condition.”

  “Oh, they were. I always look after my books, but I read them as well. A crease on the cover, worn corners, a cracked spine, a coffee stain—the sorts of things that happen to a loved book—reduce the price of any but the very rarest of books down to just a few dollars. I would guess that the copy of Fer-de-Lance might be worth fifty or sixty dollars at most. Sorry to burst your bubble.”

  “No problem,” I force myself to say. “I’ll go and tell Sam he was wrong.” As I head back to my room, I think how I’m no closer to knowing if the entire adventure on Canoe Lake was completely planned or something much more complex and sinister. I guess I just have to accept what Grandfather told me—not all mysteries in real life have an answer.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to Robin for suggesting that we all expand the series into the boys’ earlier lives and to Eric, Shane, Ted, Richard, Norah and Sigmund for making the creation and marketing of the books such an eccentric yet delightful pleasure. Thanks also to Andrew for his continued faith in us all and his light editorial hand, to Vivian for her attention to detail and Teresa for another great cover.

  JOHN WILSON is the author of more than forty books of fiction and nonfiction for kids, teens and adults. His work has won and been shortlisted for many honors, including the Geoffrey Bilson, White Pine, Red Maple and Sheila Egoff awards. His novel about Henry Hudson’s final voyage, The Alchemist’s Dream, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award. John lives on Vancouver Island but tours across Canada presenting to kids of all ages in schools and at conferences. The Missing Skull is the prequel to Lost Cause in Seven (the series) and Broken Arrow in the The Seven Sequels. You can find out more about John, his books and his presentations on www.johnwilsonauthor.com.